uncnews.unc.edu

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:

International Coverage

China One-Child Policy Is Poisoned Chalice for Xi’s New Leadership Regime
Bloomberg News
As the world’s largest national congress meets in Beijing to prepare for new leadership, likely successor Xi Jinping will inherit a roadblock to growth dating back almost to the era of Mao Zedong: the one-child policy. ...“A sudden U-turn is not likely,” said Cai Yong, a fellow at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “The government is more worried about short-term problems. More and more people see the problem but there’s no urgency to change it because it’s slow burning.”

National Coverage

New Committee Will Advise Homeland-Security Chief on Student Issues
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday the formation of a new council to advise Secretary Janet Napolitano on student-visa issues and other security-related topics that affect academe. ...The new commission, which will hold its first public meeting March 20, is charged with providing advice and recommendations to the secretary and to senior department officials. Among its members are Rufus Glasper, chancellor of Maricopa Community Colleges, John E. Sexton, president of New York University, and Holden Thorp, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5133/107/

Homeland Security Agency Forms Academic Advisory Panel
Inside Higher Ed
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday announced the creation of a panel of college presidents and other higher education leaders to advise the agency on issues related to international student recruitment, research, and other matters. Agency officials said the establishment of the committee reflected its officials' desire to work with college and university leaders. The panel's members are: ...Holden Thorp, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Trans fats may raise stroke risk in older women
HealthDay News
Here's one more reason to avoid trans fats in your diet, especially if you are an older woman: A new study found a 39 percent increased risk of stroke among postmenopausal women who ate the highest amount of this common ingredient in baked goods, fast food and packaged products. The research, done at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, did find that women who took aspirin regularly had a significantly reduced stroke risk.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5131/107/

Breastfeeding Advocates Praise Beyonce for Nursing Daughter in Public (Blog)
ABC News.com
...While breastfeeding is natural, the act has been marginalized and stigmatized in American culture, said Dr. Alison Stuebe, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at University of North Carolina Health Care. "[And] at the expense of the health and well-being of mothers and babies," said Stuebe. "By bringing breastfeeding into the mainstream, Beyonce can help break down barriers so that mothers and babies can breastfeed in peace."

Another reason to honor a UNC jersey? (Blog)
ESPN.com
North Carolina senior Tyler Zeller won’t have his number honored for earning first-team Academic All-America (twice), or Academic All-America of the Year. It’s not one of the criteria for hanging a jersey in the rafters. At least, not yet. Steve Kirschner, UNC’s associate athletics director for media relations, said Wednesday night that there have been preliminary discussions about commemorating UNC’s eight first-team Academic All Americas in the Smith Center rafters -- perhaps via a banner, perhaps by adding new criteria to the jersey list.

Regional Coverage

Franklin Gutierrez's timetable depends on type of injury
The Seattle Times (Washington)
...The Mariners have not said how serious or which type of injury Gutierrez suffered while making throws Tuesday in a drill. Dr. Jeffrey Spang, an orthopedic specialist from the University of North Carolina, said Thursday that based on the team's four-week timetable before Gutierrez can resume baseball activity, it will probably be after mid-April before he's able to throw at an elite level again. "Obviously, they will move him through the process of rehab as quickly as they feel possible," Spang said.

Interactive: See Sacramento region's most, least diverse communities
The Sacramento Bee (California)
It's been almost a decade since Time magazine declared Sacramento as the nation's most diverse city. And it's only gotten more diverse since then, according to a Bee review of the latest census data. ...The "diversity index" measures the likelihood that two residents chosen at random will be from different ethnic groups , based on a formula created by University of North Carolina professor Philip Meyer and USA Today journalists Shawn McIntosh and Paul Overberg.

State and Local

N.C. leaders join U.S. panel (Under the Dome)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Two higher education leaders from North Carolina are among 19 appointed to an academic advisory panel for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They are Dianne Boardley Suber, president of St. Augustine's College, and Holden Thorp, chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill. The appointments were announced Thursday by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Related Link:
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/morning_call/2012/03/
unc-chancellor-named-to-homeland.html
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5133/107/

Despite economy, giving up at UNC, Duke
The Triangle Business Journal
Philip Blumberg, chairman and CEO of Blumberg Capital Partners in Coral Gables, Fla., says he simply wanted to give back to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where three consecutive generations of his family have gone to college. He isn’t alone. In terms of total annual fundraising, UNC-Chapel Hill is gaining on Duke University and its legion of well-off alums. Comparing 2006 to 2011, UNC-CH has experienced a 16 percent increase in dollars given while Duke has seen a 5 percent increase.

Concerns raised about bill aimed at boosting startups
The Triangle Business Journal
...Innovators at UNC-Pembroke, for example, would no longer be confined to Pembroke. They could license products through other institutions such as UNC-Chapel Hill, MIT and Harvard. That’s the part of the bill that has Laura Schoppe, president of tech transfer company Fuentek, and some of her colleagues skeptical. “Our concern is the practicality of implementation,” she says. “UNC, larger universities, they are overburdened just by the technology they have.”

NC legislator's remarks about poverty draw ire
The Associated Press
...(Rep. George) Cleveland said he was skeptical about a House committee report that read "there are an increasing number of children living in extreme poverty." Government keeps redefining poverty "to make sure that we have a poverty class," he said. ...Few expressed their anger at Cleveland in more biting terms than Gene Nichol, director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, who said Cleveland should resign.

Orelien’s help for homeland: tourist resort
The Triangle Business Journal
SciMetrika CEO Jean Orelien’s latest mission isn’t in biotechnology. Rather, it’s in rebuilding Haiti “from the inside out” after it was mangled in a 7.0 quake in 2010. ...UNC-Chapel Hill economist Patrick Conway says it could work. “Many countries have relied upon tourism as a way to attract consumers and to expand parts of their economy,” he says. “It is an opportunity for paid employment in a country that has great unemployment numbers.”

Voices for Civil Rights: Jamila Jones
WUNC-FM
When the Smithsonian opens its National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2015, part of its collection will be oral histories of the Civil Rights movement. In addition to doing an inventory of hundreds of existing oral history collections around the country, the Smithsonian set out to conduct new interviews with those who participated in the movement. For that task, they turned to the Southern Oral History Program at UNC-Chapel Hill.

CJ Williams, Zeller: College sports' good side (Blog)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
...UNC's Tyler Zeller also has been outstanding. He's a business major and a two-time academic all-America. One of his business professors told The N&O's Andrew Carter, "It seems like he really believes (in) doing things the right way for the right reasons, treating people with respect and working hard." Let's hear it for C.J. Williams and Tyler Zeller (and for their parents). They've set a high standard and have shown how good big-time college sports could be.

Issues and Trends

‘U.S. News’ to Collect New Information From Colleges
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Later this month, when U.S. News & World Report starts to gather information from colleges for the next iteration of its rankings, it will be asking for several new data points. The changes were announced Thursday on “Morse Code,” the blog of Robert J. Morse, the magazine’s director of data research. According to the blog post, the magazine will “collect and hope to publish information in three new areas: differential graduation rates based on income and race; data about the affordability of colleges; and information about each college’s connectivity.”

60% of Americans Have Positive Views of Colleges
Inside Higher Ed
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 60 percent of Americans think colleges have a generally positive effect on American life, but noted sharp partisan divides in Americans' views of institutions of higher education.

State’s $320K pay may not be enough to lure adviser
The Triangle Business Journal
The state will soon begin dangling its highest non-academic salary – $320,000 – to attract a new chief investment officer for North Carolina’s $72 billion pension fund. ...And while the amount paid to North Carolina’s CIO eclipses even that of the governor, it pales when compared to the amount paid, for example, to Jonathon King for managing UNC-Chapel Hill’s $2.5 billion endowment.